What happens, when online publicists seize a daily newspaper? Dorten’s idea has been realised in an audacious experiment by WELT KOMPAKT. On 1st July 2010 the newspaper changed hands of the editorial staff with bloggers, micro bloggers and Amazon reviewers. The result: a newspaper scroll edition in an unaccustomed landscape format. And by the same token an enthralling as well as polarizing discussion – online such as offline.
The Scroll Edition of WELT KOMPAKT rocked the boat already in the forefront, admittedly not only for the positive side…
That’s right. As soon as we have sent out the inquiry to the online publicists, the subject wasn’t retrievable from the web. The bloggers’ feedback came right back to us by them but also through the bloggers’ own platforms. There under was also criticalness. Some had prejudice against Axel Springer, others were enraged against producing contents at no charge and have called Verdi in for example. Generally, the topic offers a lot to create an uproar: print journalism versus online publicists. That causes quite a stir at both parties! For the most part of online publicists it was however interesting and they joined the project with a lot of commitment on the editorial day.
Actually, an historical moment: the first editorial department’s conference of a German daily newspaper only attended by online publicists, apart from the chef editor.
The editorial day was really exciting! Certainly, the bloggers have pre-assembled some contents already – like it is done by every regular daily newspaper. Nevertheless, it was still a critical aspect to us: How will the bloggers react when they see the pre-filled layout? Will they be disappointed, because they think “everything is already finished”? Or will it scurf their ambition to replace the existing with new content? A major editorial challenge was the happening election of the Federal President that day. On the one hand insofar as editorial deadline is concerned, on the other hand regarding the question, how our guests want to report about this fact. As internet authors they were not really willing to read the one thing the next morning, what until then everybody already knew: “Wulff is the new Federal President”.
One aspect, whereon daily newspapers haven’t found an answer yet and which we all – up to now – accept: In the morning, we read the printed version of what we have already learned about through the internet the night before.
Does the WELT KOMPAKT Scroll Edition appear more like a magazine than a daily newspaper?
That is for sure. Our guest editors have precisely tried not to imitate the work of their journalistic colleagues, but to create rather a very own thing. I believe the Scroll Edition is a wonderful snapshot, a kind of “concept car” in the media realm. A born-and-bred experiment that raises the question: What happens if one abdicates defined categorisation of the content? What happens, if one tries to crossbreed newspapers’ layout with online design? Many critics of the Scroll Edition acted as if we have developed a kind of “newspaper of the future” for half a year and they worked themselves off point by point thought this assumed scheme. Although that couldn’t be our entitlement! For WELT KOMPAKT and Dorten the point was just to dare something that no one has ever tried before and then to wait and see what happens and most notably: to learn about it.
